David Livingstone on Sacrifice

A few weeks ago I included this quote from David Livingstones address to students at Cambridge University in a message and was asked to share it:

People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of the great debt owing to our God, which we could never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own reward of healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with such a word, such a view, and such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering or danger now and then, with a forgoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in and for us. I NEVER MADE A SACRIFICE. Of this we ought not to talk when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His Father's throne on high to give Himself for us. (Quoted in Desiring God, John Piper, Multnomah Press: Portland, 1986, p. 201)